VHS superior to DVD

If you have the widescreen VHS version of Forbidden Planet don't get the currently available DVD expecting a superior print.
The sound track, which I expected to be significantly better than the VHS version, isn't, and the picture is actually inferior with less dense colour and a more annoying level of visual "noise" i.e. white pin-point flashes. This could be my set-up, but other films have generally proved quite a bit better in the DVD format.

WONDER FILM OF THE CENTURY!

WONDER FILM OF THE CENTURY! This exclamation was uttered to describe the 1956 interstellar classic, "Forbidden Planet", by
Forry Ackerman, sci-fi icon and coiner of the term "sci-fi".
"Forbidden Planet", loosely based on Shakespeare's play, "The
Tempest", is sci-fi pulp-art at its cinematic finest: cool spacepeople, robots, spaceships and rayguns; scary telekinetic
monsters, a strange, colorful alien planet, space-trippy electronic music, remnants of a super-advanced civilization, and
a moral message that says if one can't control potentially destructive elements within oneself, one
most likely will not be able to control one's technology either.
"Forbidden Planet" is a Super Nova in the sci-fi film constellation. A must see and have for sci-fi fans of all ages.

It all started here

Forbidden Planet is where it all started. There were science fiction movies before this (although aside from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" they were pretty mediocre), but this one is special. First, until "Star Wars", this was the ONLY science fiction movie ever made that had nothing to do with Earth. It is mentioned a couple of times, but that's as close as it gets.

The relationships between the captain, his first officer, and the doctor may look familiar NOW because the original Star Trek triad came from here. The movie makers hired an animator from Walt Disney Studios to do the special effects because nobody else could achieve what the director wanted. And this movie was the origin of Robby the Robot.

But at the heart of the film is still Shakespeare's "The Tempest" -- an intelligent and thought-provoking premise brought up to date with grace and style. Oh, there is some "50s baggage" -- the scientist's daughter is necessary for the formula movies of the time, and even Walter Pidgeon overacts from time to time -- but none of it detracts from the excellence of the film.

That much is about the movie. The DVD package is special in other ways as well. The wide-screen presentation is necessary to appreciate the movie's grandeur. The color restoration means that the sky is again green instead of blue. (The green sky is homage to "After Worlds Collide", the 1930s sequel to the novel "When Worlds Collide". In the sequel, the sky on the new planet contains a species of algae that produce hydrogen in a sac that allows them to float in the air.) If you haven't seen this movie in all of its original splendor, you are missing a great deal of what made it special.